


In the Gathering Shadows

by skytramp



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Magical Realism, Organized Crime, Police, Slow Burn, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18511318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytramp/pseuds/skytramp
Summary: Strictly speaking, Flora Maxwell is her own team. Realistically, she’s just another homicide detective with a special talent.These talents, skills, gifts, the wording varies as much as the public’s perception, the only objective truth is that some people have powers beyond normal humanity. Whether those be mutations, or gifts from the gods, no one really seems to know.





	In the Gathering Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytha/gifts).



_In your deserted valley:  
I can visualize you all alone,  
A girl harboring her cryptic thoughts._

_You glow like a perfumed lamp  
In the gathering shadows. _

[ **_For the Courtesan Ch’ing Lin_ ** _by_ **_Wu Tsao_ ** ](https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/wutsao/FortheCourtesan.html)

  


Her fingertips tingle as the moments rush through her mind: A heat resistant metallic mold next to million others riding the conveyor belt, molten hot metal poured and then cooling, fashioning and sharpening, packaging and transport, then a store shelf. A man arrives, his calloused fingertips pick the knife out, he purchases it and takes it home. There’s a lot of silence then, a lot of waiting, and Flora feels the suspense building in the back of her mind. The man takes the knife. He takes it to work, he attacks his victim in the parking garage next to his beat up red Civic. He abandons the knife down the street, throwing it from his car window. It lands in the bushes. Then there’s silence.  
  


A familiar hand appears and Flora sees herself grab the knife. It’s strange to look at herself from the outside without a mirror. She sees her square jaw, the tanned skin that her Colombian mother always fretted over being too dark, her short dark hair with a few too many grey hairs for thirty five. She’s wearing the same semblance of a dark grey suit and white shirt that she always wears to work, and her tie has come unclipped. She grabs the knife first with her gloved hands, then without, and the vision disappears.  
  


“Is that it, ma’am?” The uniformed officer is shorter than her, and younger by a decade. He looks scared to even address her as formally as he already has.  
  


“Yes, Officer Adams, it’s our murder weapon.” She shifts the knife back to her gloved left hand before passing it off to waiting forensics personnel. She puts the black glove, so recently removed, back onto her right hand and straightens the tie she’d noticed was out of place. “I’m going to head back to the precinct. We’ve only got Milton in custody for another 3 hours if we don’t charge him, and I’m not going to see a murderer go free on a technicality.”  


Officer Adams nods and looks relieved to turn back to his fellow uniformed officers who appear to be doing nothing more than observing the forensic team doing their evidence collection. Flora retreats to her car and takes a breath. She was almost worried there for a minute, and the sudden adrenaline from knowing she had this killer caught sent her into a giddy tailspin. She grabs her radio and calls in her status.  


“Special Investigations Maxwell, returning to the 87 with evidence on the Edgeworth case.”  


_“Copy that Detective Maxwell, returning to the 87.”_ The dispatch radio crackles back and Flora starts the car.  
  


* * *

  
The 87th precinct is small, as far as police precincts sometimes go, and in her 15 years with the force Flora has certainly worked bigger places. The Special Investigations team here isn’t so much a team as it is Flora and a data analyst named Jackson who works out of a dark office in the basement. He prefers it that way, as natural light hurts his eyes, but Flora almost never sees him. Strictly speaking, Flora is her own team. Realistically, she’s just another homicide detective with a special talent.  


These talents, skills, gifts, the wording varies as much as the public’s perception, the only objective truth is that some people have powers beyond normal humanity. Whether those be mutations, or gifts from the gods, no one really seems to know.  


She enters the fluorescent-lit lobby and it’s empty, until it isn’t.  


“See, I told you, Maxie, you just have to listen to me more often!” The voice comes from a little girl, brown pigtail braids sticking comically out from behind her ears. She sucks on an oversized lollipop and swings a teddy bear in one hand. “You caught the guy red-handed, or should I say _knife-handed_ before the end of the day, even! Where are you taking me for dinner to celebrate?”  


Flora keeps walking, and the little girl follows her through a door back into the bullpen, a room full of desks where various officers do their paperwork. There are three officers there now, but it's after 5pm and those who aren’t on patrol have mostly gone home. No one seems to pay much attention to them as they walk through. “Detective Maxwell.” Flora corrects.  


“Are you talking to yourself now, Maxie? That sounds unhealthy.” The little girl is struggling to keep up with Flora’s long stride. _Serves her right,_ Flora thinks.  


“I was correcting you.” Flora sighs,  “Anyway, you’re not allowed back here, you know that.” They finish crossing the bullpen and Flora turns the corner into the back hallway where the interrogation rooms are located.  


“It’s cute how you think I’m ever going to listen to you.” The little girl winks, and the expression she makes looks thoroughly foreign on such a young child’s face. “Anyway, I’ll see you at dinner!”  


Without even a pause for breath the girl is gone, disappeared from the hallway. Flora sighs again and opens the door to the interrogation room.  


Flora and the other detectives are only in the interrogation room for 40 minutes before Milton confesses to the murder. Flora knows her evidence will be hard to prove in court, and she’s had a spotty record with the local prosecutor willingly entering her testimony into evidence over the years, but with a confession the man is as good as sentenced. The other officers oversee the full arrest and holding of Milton and Flora excuses herself to go home for the evening.  


It’s nearly 7pm by the time she unlocks her apartment and enters. The living room could be called minimalist, if treated generously, and “looks like you just moved in” if not. The white walls are bare, with no art or photographs, and her living room holds a single couch and a few-years-too-old television on a stand with a coffee table in between. She heads straight for her bedroom and throws her suit jacket on the bed before carefully unlatching the leather chest holster that holds her police issued firearm and taking off her button up shirt. She changes out of her black slacks and heads back into the living room wearing her stained undershirt and grey sweatpants. She does not remove her gloves.  


When she opens the fridge it’s surprisingly sparse, even for her, and only holds a single container of Chinese takeout, a half empty bottle of rosé, a jar of pickles, and three packets of hot mustard. She pulls out the takeout, grabs a fork, and begins eating the cold fried rice while standing at the counter. It was a long day, in a longer week, and Flora finds herself spacing out, lost in thought. She goes back to the fridge and pours herself a glass of the wine.  


When she turns back to her rice she finds a woman shoving a messy forkful into her mouth. She looks older, probably in her fifties, with bobbed grey hair and a striped orange and brown sweater.  
  


“You weren’t invited, Gimmick.” Flora says, taking a long swallow of the wine she had just poured herself. She takes the fork back from the woman, slides the takeout container back to her side of the counter, and continues eating her rice.  
  


“You didn’t even heat it up?” Gimmick’s voice in this form is matronly and judgemental. “That’s obscene, Maxie. You need to eat a real meal once in a while or you’ll waste away. Sit down at _a table_ , or a bar, or a couch, pretty much anything’s fine as long as you’re not standing at your kitchen counter eating like a defensive gargoyle!”  


Flora mostly ignores the jab. “Well since it’s my dinner I can eat it any way I see fit.” She sticks her fork into the rice and takes the container and her glass of wine to the couch. Gimmick raises her eyebrows in a pleased, if surprised, expression.  


Gimmick used to knock on the door, years ago, Flora remembers. There actually was a time when it seemed to matter if Flora wanted her around or not. Now Gimmick just appears, no smoke, no mirrors, just a blink and she’s here, in the kitchen, stealing Flora’s food. There isn’t even a question if it really _is_ Gimmick this time, partially because no one else teleports into her kitchen, and partially because no matter what face Gimmick wears, from little girl to old woman, Flora always seems to recognize her. Flora puts her wine and take out on the coffee table.  


“Why are you here, Gimmick? I don’t have any cases you can help with. As you can see, I’m off the clock.” Flora gestures to her empty apartment with both hands as if Gimmick needs to acknowledge their location.  


“I’m not allowed to visit a friend?” Gimmick’s voice is wistful, and it almost makes Flora want to turn back and look at her, but from her position on the couch she can no longer see Gimmick in the kitchen.  


“Are we friends? Or are you just some tireless demon sent to haunt my every waking moment for some unknown sin I committed?” As she watches herself say the words in the reflection of her television she realizes how rude they sound.  


“That’s harsh.” Gimmick does sound hurt, and Flora can’t help but look back over her shoulder to see Gimmick standing there. She’s looking away, but quickly appears to shake off the expression.  


Flora turns back towards the blank television screen. “Sorry.” She offers, though she’s not sure what else she should say. Should she say she’s jumpy having someone in her home? Should she admit how long it’s been since someone’s been here? Flora can hear the footsteps, and she even thinks she hears when the soft loafers the old woman was wearing transition into hot pink high heels.  


Gimmick is different now, this time looking barely twenty five, with long dark hair framing her perfectly made-up face. She’s wearing perhaps the sparkliest silver dress Flora has ever seen, and it barely covers the upper third of her thighs.  


“Come out with me, Maxie! Celebrate the solved case! Let’s go out on the town, make some trouble!” Her voice is excited, but also sultry in a way Flora absolutely doesn’t want to think about, and she can appreciate how she’s being manipulated, even if she doesn’t like it. Gimmick bends down and grabs Flora’s gloved hand, somehow managing the leverage to pull her to her feet. They’re about the same height, with Flora barefoot and Gimmick’s current body in high heels. “Come on, _please_?”  


Flora takes a deep breath and extricates her hand from Gimmick’s grip. “I’m tired. Let me celebrate in my own way. By sleeping.” She sidesteps Gimmick so there is space for her to step away without falling back onto the couch. The next time Flora blinks Gimmick has changed her form. She’s blonde, with pale skin and her hair braided to one side, and she’s wearing full penguin-patterned pajamas.  


“Okay. Goodnight, _Flora_ .” Gimmick stresses the name, as if showing off her capability to _not_ annoy Flora for once. “We have to go out and make trouble sometime soon, though, and I’ll hold you to that.” She disappears. Flora feels the absence of presence in the room like the aftershock of a breeze. She finishes her meager dinner and goes to bed.  
  


* * *

  
Flora’s days go back to normal. She continues to go to work every day, investigating various cases, completing her paperwork on time, and she is rarely required to remove her gloves and use her powers. Gimmick seems to stay away, and whether that is because of Flora’s rejection or because Gimmick is difficult to predict even in the best circumstances, Flora doesn’t know.  
  


It’s been a long day, but Flora can’t bring herself to go home yet, there’s something on her mind. Over the last week she’s been hearing rumors of robberies from other detectives. None of them have resulted in homicides, so it’s decidedly not her department, but something about the details, about the pattern, draws her attention. Flora finds herself alone in the bullpen, at least for a moment, with the night shift uniformed officers on their patrols, and takes the opportunity to look into some of her suspicions.  


Technically, the case files are available to her. Technically, she’s only breaching the common trust between departments. She’s not breaking the law, she tells herself, she’s not even breaking official protocol. Still, when she sits down at a colleague’s desk and logs into his database for case details, she looks over her shoulder, afraid of getting caught.  


_There_ , she finds it. Three, thus far unconnected, convenience store robberies, situated in close neighborhoods. But they don’t have enough in common that anyone at the precinct has made any concrete ties. Something pings in the back of her mind that she knows means she’s putting something together, and _yes_ , when she searches the landlords for those properties, wades through a series of holding company names, and digs through a database of known company aliases for organized crime: she’s got them.  


George Tanner, better known as “Sawblade” Tanner, is the leader and patriarch of the Tanner family. He has been one of the biggest players in the city’s organized crime rings for as long as Flora’s been alive. And Flora, to her credit, put his son Jeff in prison last year for murder. Well, officially, he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to 10 years in prison, 5 with good behavior. The corruption of justice has haunted her ever since. The line of ownership for the convenience stores doesn’t lead back to Tanner, but it _does_ lead to his rival gang, simply known as Matador. Now that Flora sees it, these robberies _must_ be Tanner sending them some sort of message. If only she could figure out what it means.  


She’s not sure how long Gimmick is there before she notices her. She’s curvaceous this time, red curly hair falling past her shoulder, and she’s dressed in a deep maroon evening gown slit all the way up her thigh. She’s half sitting on the desk behind Flora.  


“What are you up to?” Gimmick asks, leaning and peering towards the computer screen in front of Flora. Her voice is deep, like a 1940s movie star.  


“Nothing.” Flora says, too quickly. “Investigating a crime. It’s my job.”  


Gimmick disappears and reappears on the other side of the desk where Flora still sits. She grabs a paper file off the desk and begins flipping through it. “Robberies? Not your usual fare, Maxie. Something special about these?” She steps around the edge of this desk to sit on one hip, as if standing upright for more than three seconds is cramping her style.  


She almost sounds genuinely curious, and Flora knows it's hopeless to get Gimmick to give up on any curiosity she may have. Since they’re alone, she relents. “I think they’re related to Tanner.”  


“That old bastard? He should have given up when you got his son thrown in prison.” Gimmick laughs heartily, with her whole body heaving. She drops the case file back on the desk.  


“Yeah.” Flora says, unsure what else she can really say. She knows Sawblade Tanner isn’t giving up any time soon, not when he’s got a stranglehold on basically every less than legal good transiting in and out of the port. Arresting his son hardly slowed him down, and he still had strings enough to pull within the justice system to get the man a severely lessened sentence. Flora stands up and dusts off the front of her slacks before stretching her shoulders.  


“Do you want me to do some snooping, Maxie?” Gimmick offers with a shrug.  


“No thank you.” Flora clears her throat. “These aren’t my cases, I can’t….interfere.”    


“You know, I used to be a spy.” Gimmick counters, she smiles and sits up straighter on the desk. She looks proud of herself and Flora can’t help a small grin back.  


“When were you a spy?” Flora responds, still smiling, “One stakeout with me doesn’t make you a spy.” She remembers that stake out, Flora had to beg her captain to let her do it “alone”, because Gimmick would _not_ leave her alone about being included. It was 8 hours of sitting in a car staring at the door to a building. Nothing had happened whatsoever.  


“Oh, a while ago… Before your time… The Great War I think it was?” Gimmick muses, looking as if she’s exaggeratedly trying to recall a memory.  


Flora laughs before she realizes Gimmick is serious, or as serious as she ever gets. “Wait. How old are you?”  


Gimmick shakes her head and stands up. She’s standing about equal height with Flora now, and puts a manicured hand on Flora’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She disappears and Flora thinks she can still feel the shadow of the heat of Gimmick’s hand lingering on her shoulder.  
  


* * *

  
Flora is still tired when she arrives at the station the next morning, black coffee in hand. She’s only there for less than five minutes when her captain hands her a new case that she needs to be on-site for: A bodega owner was killed while unlocking his store, and there are multiple nearby witnesses. She immediately puts her jacket back on, grabs her coffee, and heads for the door.  
  


The day is gray and overcast, with a drizzle settling in Flora’s short hair that she wipes away by slicking it back with her gloved hand. She approaches the police line with purposeful steps and says a quick greeting to the uniformed officer while she shows her badge, allowing herself access beyond it. The coroner has yet to remove the victim’s body, and Flora is grateful, because it’s easier to read a once living thing, even if the emotions linger unpleasantly afterwards. His body is on the sidewalk, halfway sheltered beneath the eaves of the store he owned, covered with a white plastic sheet. His keys are on the ground beside him.  


She squats down and pulls back the sheet just from the man’s face. Eduardo Martinez, fifty-three year old father of four grown children, owner of the bodega that was his father’s before him, and murdered senselessly in cold blood. The man’s thinning hair is disheveled and Flora resists the urge to straighten it. She removes the black glove from her right hand and takes a deep breath.  


The first thing she sees is a smile. A bright smiling beautiful woman in her fifties, mixing flour in a kitchen and admonishing her husband in Spanish for trying to steal a snack before the meal is ready. A girl in her twenties with her mother’s smile is spinning around in a wedding dress. A teenage girl is smiling and eating a piece of cake in a purple quinceañera dress. A young man with Eduardo’s eyes is crying and smiling, hugging his mother, while wearing a military uniform. A man in his early thirties is smiling and nodding and showing Eduardo the ring he bought to propose. The scene shifts in a series of memories that Flora can hardly parse, but the emotion is nearly overwhelming.  


And then it’s today, this morning, and Eduardo begins to unlock the rolling metal door that secures his store at night. He doesn’t see the attacker, and Flora feels the essence of the pain, the stab wounds that are almost certainly hidden beneath the plastic sheet. She pulls her hand away as the vision fades.  
  


Flora takes a few deep breaths before replacing her glove and covering Eduardo’s face again. It’s unusual that a victim’s memories stray from the trauma, she almost never sees, _feels_ , the types of emotions this man felt for his family. Before she realizes it a tear rolls down her cheek and she wipes it away so that no one notices. She lets a nearby uniformed officer know she’s finished with the victim’s body and would like to speak to the witnesses they’ve gathered.  


As she rounds the corner the drizzle turns into a full rain and Flora sees the few witnesses huddled beneath the overhang on a loading dock flanked by several uniformed officers and a short black woman in an out of season summer dress and an elaborate yellow headwrap. Flora recognizes Gimmick immediately. The uniformed officers don’t seem fazed by her presence, and a part of Flora wonders if the officers even see her if Gimmick doesn’t want to be noticed.  


“Officer Cho.” Flora says to the woman on the right, once again wiping her wet hair out of her face. “This woman is a consultant, please allow her presence in the witness questioning.”  


And it seems Flora’s guess is correct, because a series of emotions: surprise, concern, composure, compliance, cross the woman’s face before she nods. “Yes, ma’am. Who would you like to speak with first?”  


Gimmick and Flora question the witnesses, though Gimmick does little more than the odd quip or inappropriate laugh, while Flora asks the actually relevant questions. They stand half the block down, under another awning to avoid the rain, and officer Cho escorts each witness with her umbrella. The witnesses vary from unrelated: a passerby who was around the block and heard Eduardo’s dying shout, to very related: The man’s wife, Lupe, who was upstairs in their shared apartment and saw a black clad figure approach her husband before her view was blocked by the store’s awning. Flora has to resist an out of character urge to hug Lupe when she begins to cry, and blames the instinct on the lingering sense of Eduardo’s memories still running through her mind. Or maybe it’s just that the woman reminds her of her own mother.  


One witness is a store employee who arrived on the scene just as Lupe made it downstairs to find her husband dying of his wounds. He looks young, maybe twenty, and at least partially traumatized by the events. Flora would like to get this over with quickly and let this boy get some help.  


“Your name is Esteban?” Flora begins.  


“No.” The young man replies. “Wait. Yes... but I go by Steve.”  
  


“Okay Steve, just take a deep breath and tell me what you saw. From the beginning.” Flora readies her notepad and pen to take any relevant notes before the boy begins.  


“Okay so, I was coming to work, right? I get off the subway at 79th and walk around the block to get to the store. As soon as I turn the corner I see Señor Martinez on the ground, and Señora Martinez is crying and yelling and all upset, right? I run over and try and see if I can help but like, I’m not trained on any doctor shit. Stuff. And anyway, I think he was… already dead.” He takes a deep breath and looks away, and Flora feels Gimmick’s shoulders stiffen next to her.  


“Thanks Steve.” Flora dismisses him, eager to speak to Gimmick about her reaction. “I’ll come back and speak to you if I have more questions. Please go back with Officer Cho now.”  


Once they’re alone, Flora turns to Gimmick just as she turns as well. “The kid’s a liar.” She says without prompting.  


Flora shushes her and looks around. She gestures and walks a little further away from the officers and witnesses and into the rain, Gimmick follows. “How do you know?” Flora answers. “And what is he lying about?”  


Gimmick reaches out and touches Flora’s arm and Flora jumps a little before realizing the gesture was meant to be comforting. “I always know. You can trust me that much, Maxie.” She removes her hand. “And pretty much his entire story is bullshit. Sure, it matches with when Lupe saw him, but that was _not_ when he arrived. Push him on that. He’ll crack.”  


Flora nods and takes a step back. She isn’t sure what Gimmick is alluding to, and it unnerves her that her own instincts are too dull to catch whatever untrustworthiness Gimmick is sensing in Steve, but she has to believe her. Gimmick assured her she could trust her in sensing a liar, and Flora doesn’t question that. It wouldn’t be the first time Gimmick’s hints on witness testimony bore fruit.  


“Now let’s get the hell out of this rain, Maxie. You’re ruining my dress.” Gimmick laughs, and they step back to their awning.  


They question another witness first, a woman who works at the store across the street, before circling back to Steve. Flora has Officer Cho bring him back to where Gimmick and her are standing.  


“Hi Steve.” Flora tries for casual, but her voice still sounds stern. “We just had a couple more follow up questions.”  


Steve nods, and Flora thinks she sees it now; a nervousness she’d taken for shock at first glance, a darting to the eyes that Flora contributed as the quirk of a child. But no, this is a grown man, who is potentially in deep over his head.  


“So you said you got off the subway at 79th and came around the block to see Señor Martinez already on the ground, is that correct?” Flora pauses, and looks at her notes as if needing them to recall information.  


“Um, yeah. That’s right. And Señora Martinez was there too. She saw me come up.” Steve avoids eye contact.  


“Yes, so you said.” Flora replies, and pauses for effect. “Do you own much black clothing, Steve?”  


“What?” He looks shocked at her question, but not truly confused.  


“I asked if you own much black clothing. I see you’re in khakis now,” She gestures to his blue hoodie and tan khaki pants that must be part of his work uniform. “But I think you were in different clothes earlier this morning.”  


Steve is silent, hardly daring to breathe as his eyes flick between Flora and Gimmick and back to Flora.  


“Steve.” Flora pauses. She remembers the power of hearing her mother call her full name with just the right tone: _Flora Daniela Figueroa Maxwell you get down here right now!_ And on a whim, she channels her mother. “Esteban Gutiérrez, did you kill Eduardo Martinez?”  


He takes off like a shot.  


Flora reaches out for him, but he’s too quick and she is unable to close the gap between them before he’s running full speed back towards the other witnesses. Flora yells out for Officer Cho and the other uniformed officers to join the chase. Before Steve makes it around the corner he’s tackled by one of the larger uniformed officer and handcuffed. The officer pulls him to his feet and holds him steady as Flora approaches at a jog. She notices Gimmick didn’t follow, and is watching from down the block with the rest of the witnesses, her yellow head wrap standing out like a small sun amongst the gray world.  


Flora makes sure her breathing is calm before she speaks, though Steve is still taking heaving panicked breaths. “Why did you kill your employer, Steve. Was he not paying you well enough?”  
  


And Steve breaks. His motive is flimsy, and he seems to realize the depth of his mistake more and more as he speaks. He was in love with Gabby, The Martinez’s youngest daughter, who recently started attending a local college, and she had rejected him. Steve had told her he’d make her pay, and in his impotent rage concocted his half-shod plan to attack Eduardo before the shop opened and then arrive at work as if he knew nothing. He kept apologizing and Flora kept nodding, keeping her face as free from expression as she could manage. It’s not her job to judge, she reasons, only to enforce law, but Eduardo’s memories, his love for his family, the face of his daughter, almost surely Gabby at her quinceañera flashing through Flora’s mind was causing her to struggle.  


She makes the arrest and has the uniformed officers escort him back to the station. She allows the rest of the witnesses to go on with their day, and spends a long time listening to Lupe question through her grief. Flora does not speak much, it’s not her place, nor is it appropriate to offer counsel to a next of kin, but still she sees something of her mother in this woman, even if it is just her bearing, or her dark hair, and Flora can’t bring herself to leave immediately.  


She didn’t notice at what point Gimmick disappeared, and she’s sure no one else did either.  
  


* * *

  
The end of the day couldn’t have come soon enough. Flora is dragging by the time she makes it home, and basically drops everything she can (jacket, shoes, bag) on the floor as she enters her apartment. After the hectic morning, she’d had to get Steve’s official statement of confession, and file all associated paperwork. It wasn’t usual in her department to have a case open and close on the same day, so it felt like twice as many forms than usual. She consulted on a few other cases throughout the day, and helped facilitate an interrogation.  
  


Her mind keeps going back to the morning’s case. It isn’t Steve or his confession that still bothers her as she sits down on her couch in the evening, it’s Eduardo’s family memories. They won’t seem to leave her alone, and when she doesn’t stop herself, her brain replaces Lupe’s smiling face with her mother’s, or her own, she sees herself, awkward and twenty years younger, in Gabby’s quinceañera dress.  


She groans and puts her head in her still gloved hands. She needs a drink, and she’s already finished the last of the wine in her fridge.  


As if summoned by the thought of alcohol, Flora feels a weight appear on the couch next to her. When she lifts her head she sees a white, blonde woman with long curls wearing a red silk dress with her legs crossed primly. She’s sipping a cocktail as if she teleported straight _from_ a bar and looks entirely out of place in Flora’s dimly lit and empty living room.  


“Are you ready to celebrate?” Gimmick says with a wink, sipping her cocktail. The drink matches her dress, and something about the way it slips past Gimmick’s lips makes Flora wonder what it tastes like.  


She looks away and finds their hazy reflection in her tv screen. “What are we celebrating?”  


“You caught a murderer today, Maxie, don’t you remember?” Her voice is happy, as if she’s smiling, and Flora can almost see the distortion in the reflection. Flora turns to look at her and scoots a few inches further away on the couch.  


“You helped.” Flora holds out her hand, “Can I have some of your drink?”  


Gimmick looks shocked and smiles. She leans forward with the cocktail glass and Flora feels the cool pressure of the glass through her gloves for only a split second before the entire thing disappears. “Only if you come out with me tonight.” She says, her already present smile turning wicked.  


Flora laughs despite herself at the sudden trickery but shakes her head. “It’s been a long day.”  


“It’s _always_ a long day, but you said so yourself that you need a drink!” Gimmick gestures towards her now empty hand, still outstretched.  


For a brief panicking moment Flora remembers that she only _thought_ that she needed a drink, she didn’t say the phrase aloud at all. “Can you read my mind or something?”  


“Maxie, you asked for some of my drink.” Gimmick laughs.  


Flora’s cheeks get hot and she looks away again. “Right. Anyway. I should just sleep.”  


Gimmick reaches out for Flora’s hand but ends up half-gripping her wrist instead. The feeling of fingers on her bare skin is so shocking Flora jerks away before she can stop herself. They sit in silence for a few seconds, and Flora can’t quite tell what the expression on Gimmick’s face means. She’s had to learn so many faces over the years.  


“One drink... If you’re paying.” Flora says after the long pause.  


The joyous expression on Gimmick’s face seems more than worth the effort Flora will have to make to change her clothes and get a single drink at some bar somewhere.  
  


* * *

  
It only takes her ten minutes or so to get out of her work clothes and into some of the few pieces of casual clothing she owns. She wears a white tank top with a jean vest, a pair of black jeans slightly tighter than the slacks she wears for work, and trades her black gloves for a pair of brown leather driving gloves she’d once bought on a whim. Gimmick offers to do her makeup but Flora declines, adamantly, remembering not-so-fondly the one time she _had_ let Gimmick near her face with a makeup brush.  
  


Gimmick hails them a cab out of nowhere once they’re on the street and they drive for a few minutes of radio-filled silence before pulling up outside a moderately busy looking club. Gimmick tosses a few indeterminate bills towards the driver and pulls Flora from the car before she gets a chance to question it. A neon logo in the window declares the business “The Eden Lounge” illustrated with a snake wrapped around a half eaten apple.  


A variety of people fill the sidewalk outside the building, smoking in small groups and socializing. It takes Flora a minute or so of wading through the people with Gimmick’s hand firm around her wrist to realize that none of the people seem to be men.    


“What kind of bar is this?” Flora says loudly, attempting to be heard over the people and the music that is emanating from the open door that Gimmick pulls her through.  


“Maxie have you never been to a girl bar?” Gimmick laughs as if this is the funniest thing Flora could have said.  


To be fair, she _has_ been to lesbian bars before, but it’s been a decade, and she’s not much for busy rooms full of people. A room like this pulsates with a tangible energy that makes her hands itch. Gimmick seems to take her silence has agreement. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Let’s get you that drink.”  


Once inside the room seems to split two directions. The louder music comes from the left side where a DJ booth is set back into the wall and there is a dance floor full of moving bodies. The right side seems equally full but a long bar with stools covers the entire right wall. A couple of busy bartenders are serving the clientele and Gimmick pulls Flora all the way to the bar and rudely shoves people enough to make space. Gimmick is still in the red dress with the blonde hair from when she first appeared in Flora’s apartment, and with the stilettos she’s wearing she’s got just about an inch on Flora in terms of height, though she’s more slender.  


Flora can see how the bar patrons are noticing Gimmick. She cuts quite a figure as she walks through the room, like someone in a movie. Now she’s squeezed into a too small space against the bar next to Flora. She sets a $20 on the bar and slides it over to Flora’s gloved hand. “Get your drink, I’m going to go dance!” She says loudly and too close to Flora’s face. Flora just nods and Gimmick disappears, less literally than usual, but she moves quickly through the crowd like half a ghost until she’s in the middle of the dance floor.  


It takes Flora nearly 10 minutes to catch the attention of one of the busy bartenders, a woman with short brown hair and a black tank top that simply says “DYKE” in bold letters. “What can I get you?” She says loudly over the din.  


“Vodka soda” Flora responds. She’s not much of a liquor drinker, but she chooses something simple to at least give the bartenders an easy job. The bartender in question raises her eyebrows as if surprised by the choice.  


“Coming right up.” She says, and steps away to grab a glass. It only takes less than 30 seconds for the woman to mix the two ingredient drink and slide back to where Flora is standing. She leans in across the bar to be better heard as she pushes the glass forward. “First time here?”  


Flora nods.  


“It’s on me, then. Enjoy.” She smiles and goes back to work.  


The gesture is nice, even if needless, because Flora is holding Gimmick’s money. She pockets the money for now and sips on the tiny straw in her glass and searches the dance floor for Gimmick. She’s easy to find. She’s swaying with her arms outstretched and her blonde hair bouncing around her head.  


The bar is still crowded, and Flora opts to take a few steps away from the counter if only to free up space for someone else. She lingers near the back wall sipping her drink and listening to the music. Well, she thinks, she got the drink she wanted, even if she’s going to have a different headache from how loud the music is. She’s nearly finished sipping the vodka soda in her hand when Gimmick comes up next to her, sweating and smiling, and takes the glass from her hand.  


“Come dance with me!” She half yells, and her voice is almost hoarse. She leans over to the nearest table, occupied by a couple people, and sets Flora’s glass on the edge.  


Without the excuse of the drink in her hand and _with_ the excuse of the drink she’s already swallowed Flora lets herself nod and Gimmick pulls her over to the dance floor.  


The lights are hypnotically flashing overhead, and Flora accidentally bumps more than a few gyrating bodies as Gimmick finds them a position near the center of the dance floor that she seems to like. The bass pounds loud in Flora’s ears as she begins to dance. It’s been years since she’s danced like this, swaying and moving to the music. At first she focuses on the people around them, the swirls of sequin and fabric, the subtle smell of sweat overpowered by the smell of alcohol and a mixture of a dozen perfumes and colognes. Then she focuses on herself: her own movements are rusty, a little stiff, her body is unused to these type of movements.  


As if reading her mind, Gimmick grabs her by the upper arms and shakes her a little. Flora thinks she’s saying “Loosen up!” judging by the movement of her lips but the sound doesn’t reach her ears. Flora takes the advice anyway, and tries to be more fluid, remembering when she used to move like this, when she used to love dancing as a child. Gimmick’s face brightens at the instant change in Flora’s demeanor and as Flora watches it’s almost as if the smile is morphing.  


The once wide, lipstick rimmed smile of the blonde, white woman Gimmick was portraying shifted, a narrower smile, smaller mouth, larger nose. Her hair was shrinking too, condensing into a shoulder length bob, straightening and darkening first to brown, then black in the dark of the dance floor. Her red silk dress stays the same length, hovering at her mid thigh, but changes colors, becoming what could be pink, and tightening around her hips. Flora can barely keep dancing as she watches the changes happen. With the way the music and lights have deafened her senses, the way Gimmick moves, comes in closer until they’re legs are touching with every bouncing movement, their arms sliding against each other, Gimmick’s face even with Flora’s and only inches away, Flora feels like she’s on drugs, or dreaming.  


Flora feels Gimmick’s hand touch her bare upper arm just above the star shaped army tattoo, she can feel her hand sliding, up towards her shoulder, the edges of the fabric of her vest and shirt. It’s like everything comes to a stop and Flora is suddenly cold, the palms of her hands tingle beneath her leather gloves, and she has to pull away.  


The shock on Gimmick’s new face is palpable and Flora comes to her senses enough to gesture and say the word “Drink!”.  
  
Gimmick nods, but Flora thinks she still looks worried. Flora turns and extricates herself from the dance floor as best she can without touching people. It must have been only a few minutes, but the bar is slightly emptier now, and Flora can see a clear path to the counter. The bartenders are less busy this time, and as Flora reaches the counter she finds the same bartender who served her previously waiting. She smiles when she sees Flora and pushes her short brown hair out of her eyes.  


“Another vodka soda?” She asks, and Flora is more than a little surprised she remembered, though that must be a staple of her job as a bartender at a busy place like this.  


Flora nods and fishes Gimmick’s money from her pocket. The woman returns a few seconds later with the drink. Flora slides the bill across the bar. “Thanks.” She says.  


“You’re a good dancer.” The bartender replies, nodding her head back towards the dance floor. “I saw you out there.”  


Flora can feel her cheeks get a little warm and she sips her drink. “Thanks. It’s been a long time.”  


“I wouldn’t have guessed, you look like a natural.” The woman responds, and Flora finds herself unable to make eye contact. She supposes the woman is just being polite, haggling for tips in a competitive market, and maybe the blush on Flora’s cheeks marks her as a sucker.  


Flora smiles, takes another drink of her vodka soda, and glances away. She stops herself from turning around fully, from seeking Gimmick’s form on the dance floor. She’s surprised when she hears the bartender speak to her again.  


“So is that woman your girlfriend? The blonde one you came in with?”  


Flora turns back and looks at the woman fully. She’s smiling, and looks away to make change for the money Flora had handed her, she slides the series of smaller bills across the counter back and looks up expectantly.  


“Oh. No, she’s just a… friend. We work together sometimes.” Flora finds herself rationalizing. It hadn’t occurred to her that that is what people would see when she entered, hand held and being pulled along by the eye-catching woman Gimmick was portraying tonight. Of _course_ it would look like that, she realizes now, and she’s not sure how she feels about it.  


The bartender’s smile widens perceptibly. “Oh… Good.”  


Flora pockets her change and leaves a good tip. The woman certainly has worked for it, if nothing else. “Well,” Flora begins and the bartender grabs the tip, “I should probably let you get back to work.”  


“Oh, yeah.” The bartender responds, as if that thought hadn’t really occurred to her. “Hey, though, I’m Ann, just, by the way.” She holds out her hand to shake and Flora is struck by the sudden formality but shakes the woman’s outstretched hand with her own gloved one over the top of the bar.  


“Dete-- Flora. I’m Flora, nice to meet you Ann.”  


Ann gives Flora’s hand a slightly prolonged final shake and lets go. Flora’s hand isn’t even back to her side of the bar before a voice barks out loudly next to her.  


“Rum and coke!”  
  


Ann snaps to attention and moves to begin the drink. In that moment Flora realizes the new patron is Gimmick, back in the form of the blonde woman she’d arrived as, though she’s decidedly taller now, hovering a good few inches over Flora’s own height even as she leans forward over the bar.  


Ann slides Gimmick her drink and Gimmick slaps down a single bill on the counter, picks up the drink, and turns away. She looks to Flora. “Let’s go.”  


At this point they’ve hardly been in the bar a half an hour and Flora’s own second drink has barely been touched. She’s not sure what brought about Gimmick’s sudden attitude change but she doesn’t like it. “You dragged me out here, at least let me finish my drink. You paid for it, after all.”  


Gimmick pounds her own drink in a few big swallows and puts the glass back down on the counter behind her. “This place is boring. Let’s go somewhere else.” She tries again, and reaches for Flora’s arm.  


Flora pulls away before she can be grabbed. “I don’t want to go anywhere else, Gimmick.” She replies and takes a sip from her glass. She doesn’t want to finish the drink too soon and give Gimmick more fuel for her sudden irrational argument.  


“Well, I’m leaving then.” Gimmick says curtly, and strides towards the door.  


Flora follows her. She’s not sure why she’s doing it, and she abandons her drink at the counter, despite it only being half empty. She has to push through a few people near the doorway and by the time she makes it outside she has to look around to spot Gimmick. It looks like she’s shorter again, only Flora’s height in the heels she’s still wearing. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she stands about twenty feet to the left of the Eden Lounge entrance. A lit cigarette appears between Gimmick’s fingers and she takes a long drag as Flora approaches.  


“What was that?” Flora asks, probably too loud, with the echo of the loud music still ringing in her ears. She can hear her own voice has a tinge of hoarse from all the yelling inside the building. “ _You’re_ the one that brought me here to _celebrate_ ? And now you’re throwing a fit? God--” 

  
Gimmick stands up straight and her cigarette disappears in a puff of its own smoke. “Don’t you _dare_ use that word around me, Flora Maxwell.” Gimmick snaps, “And yeah, I brought you here to have fun. To make you loosen up for _once._ Maybe get you to take off those goddamn _gloves_ , and then you sulk away to the bar instead of dancing?”  


Flora clenches her fists, feeling the layers of leather between her fingernails and her palms where they threaten to dig in. “This is ridiculous!” She yells now, and she realizes she has been yelling, and she’s not quite sure that she cares. “You _know_ \--” she begins, and then quiets, her voice getting deep into a menacing whisper, “you _know_ why I wear these gloves. A place like this would be a sensory nightmare for me without them! Do you really _want_ me curled up on the floor fighting off thousands of memories flooding my brain? Does that sound like a fun way to spend the night, _Gimmick_?”

 

Gimmick doesn’t respond, but Flora is on a roll now and she’s _angry_ at Gimmick, at this ridiculous situation, that she’s even _having_ this argument. “And one more thing, you expect all this shit of me, you appear in my _home_ , you eat my _food_ , you interfere in my _work_ , and after all these years you won’t even tell me _what_ you are? What do you even really look like? Which one of these masks is real, Gimmick? Who the on the gods’ green earth _are you_?”  


The anger in Gimmick’s eyes flares like a flame and Flora is almost sure she genuinely sees a spark. “Well.” Gimmick says, her voice a mockery of pleasantness. “If that’s how you feel.”  


She disappears, and it’s as if she never was there to begin with.  
  


Flora takes a few deep breaths, taking in the night air around her. She realizes she can hear again, the distant thumping of the bass, and the quiet chatter of those patrons closer to the entrance of The Eden Lounge behind her. She considers going back inside, finishing her drink, maybe talking to Ann some more. Instead, she steps to the curb and hails a cab home.  
  


* * *

  
Flora’s head hurts the next morning and she’s pretty sure it’s not from the minimal amount of alcohol she ingested the night before. She was up half the night wondering if Gimmick would appear. Sometimes she wished Gimmick would stay away, stop bothering her and interfering in her life, other times she just wanted Gimmick to appear on her couch, offer a laugh and a chance for adventure, allow her to apologize.  


She’s not precisely sure _she_ should be the only one apologizing though. She still doesn’t know how the fight even started. She’s never seen Gimmick act that way before. She’s been rude, of course, but usually with the aim of riling someone up, getting a confession, or making a joke. She loves to pull pranks on people, especially if she can convince them she had nothing to do with it. But Flora has never seen her like _that_. Not until last night.  


Flora arrives at the police station on time, and settles down at her desk with a cardboard cup of coffee obtained from a street cart on her commute in. The bullpen is bustling with activity, and she’s not surprised when the Captain calls her into his office to introduce another case. A new case so quickly after the last one is certainly distressing, but Flora thinks she can use the mental distraction. She needs something more than perpetual paperwork to stop the spinning thoughts in her mind.  


She almost drops the file when she sees Sawblade Tanner’s name on the “Known Associates” list. The victim is Robert Kaucus, thirty six years old, and three different stints in federal prison for smuggling, assault, and robbery. The image inside shows his sprawled body on concrete, what looks like bullet wounds in the chest.  


“I know you have a history with Tanner.” Her Captain begins, seemingly ready to offer her an out. He’s a south asian man, about her height but with a thick frame and a deep resonant voice.  


“That’s precisely why I need this case. Do we think it was a hit?” She keeps her voice firm while responding. The openness of the body’s location suggests it could have been a message of some kind, but maybe it was just a sloppy job, a fight gone wrong.  She flips through the slim file. They don’t have much information yet.  


“That’s something we need to investigate. The known associates as well as the location where we found the body suggests as much, but we can’t jump to any conclusions. You’re really okay to take this case? We could use your expertise and… specialty, but if you don’t think you should get this close to another Tanner case I can give it to someone else.” The Captain’s tone is smooth and controlled. Flora is glad he isn’t emotional, it makes it easier to match his tone and keep her breathing even.  


“I can do it.” She confirms, and returns the small file to the Captain’s desk. She smooths the front of the manila folder closed with her gloved hand.  


“Alright, Maxwell.” Her Captain confirms. “Victim’s body is already at the morgue, I’d start there, see what it tells you. Otherwise the scene of the crime is down by the docks near a few Tanner owned warehouses, forensics is still on scene but I know sometimes you can get more detailed results than them.”  


“Yes, sir.” Flora nods, and leaves the office.  


She doesn’t linger in the precinct. She has something to focus on, something to puzzle out that isn’t the mysterious depths of Gimmick’s thought processes, and she’s eager to dig into it. Considering the complications, the connections to the Tanner family, the possibility that this is a full organized crime hit job rather than a random murder, makes Flora’s palms tingle. She wonders if this is really what it looks like, and if, somehow improbably, she can find a connection between this murder and the string of robberies connected to Tanner and his rival gang Matador. Perhaps Robert Kaucus was doing work for Matador, and Tanner had to send a message that defections aren’t allowed?  


The thoughts keep her occupied for the entire drive to the morgue. She steps inside, shows credentials and explains her needs to the morgue attendant. She thinks back and realizes it was only yesterday she used her powers in the same way, touching the recently killed body of Eduardo Martinez. She doesn’t remember the last time she’s had to do this two times in the same week. It’s probably not a good sign, and mixing the turbulent emotions of the recently murdered with her own menial concerns is a potent cocktail for a bad day, but she’s got a job to do.  


The attendant brings her to the body of Robert Kaucus. He looks much the same as the photograph in the file, though his clothing and the blood splatter has been removed. She’s grateful the full autopsy has yet to be performed, because her hands don’t discriminate, and everything holds memory, not just the conscious body: experiencing the feeling of a a bonesaw first hand is not an experience she enjoys. The attendant leaves her alone, departing to his desk across the room.  


Flora removes the glove from her right hand and sticks it in her pocket. The oddly pale skin of her hand shines under the bright examination light as she stretches it towards the center of the man’s chest. She can see the bullet wounds, three of them, two in the upper torso and one in his left arm. She avoids touching them. A bullet wound is a singular experience, but she needs to know the full effect of the murder, and the body will remember the details.  


The visions hit her immediately: blood, pain, a twisting pull of muscles and the sharp ringing of skull on pavement. Then they’re more coherent, older memories that are sharp: prison bars clanging closed, a man slaps a woman, Robert cries on a run down couch, he kisses a woman, he hits a man across the face with a beer bottle. And here, she feels the moment approaching like the slow eventuality of a rising tide, she hears the gunshots before she feels the pain again. Here is the blood, the pain, and she sees the overcast sky above her as Robert falls. A hooded figure stands over him, watching him bleed to death with a sinister intensity. And the vision fades.  


She pulls her hand away and takes a deep breath. These memories are far from the pleasant nostalgia of Eduardo Martinez. Robert Kaucus led a violent life, and his body remembers every punch along the way. The only concrete thing she knows about the murder is the state of the sky and that the perpetrator wore a hood to conceal their identity. It’s not a lot to go by, and Flora curses her bad luck as she pulls her glove back onto her hand.  


She lets the morgue attendant know she is through with the body, and makes her way back out to her car.  


By the time she reaches the crime scene it’s just after noon and the morning drizzle and fog has yet to burn off over the bay. Flora parks her car near a forensics van in front of one of the few large white tents they had erected to keep their equipment and whatever evidence they collected free from the damp air. The tents are clustered at the end of an alley, and Flora can see where the yellow police tape cordons off the area beyond.  


The area beyond, as she approaches, is a narrow alley between seemingly unoccupied warehouses. The once-slick asphalt is slowly drying, as the ground is blocked from the rain by a series of rigged up tarps. She’s grateful for the respite from the weather.  


She flags down one of the forensics agents and locates the person in charge. He hardly considers her credentials for more than a few seconds before waving her beyond the police line and onto the crime scene. There is no comical chalk outline, no overwhelming blood splatter, just a series of small yellow plastic tents that serve as numbered evidence markers and a single pool of blood, drying despite the humidity. The alley contains a dumpster and two stone walls. It dead ends with a chain-link fence, though Flora can see a series of perpendicular alleys about 60 feet down.  


She removes the glove from her right hand. All she can do is hope the pavement remembers the footsteps of the killer, and that it will be willing to show her a sign. As she kneels down she can feel the damp ground soaking the knees of her pants, but it’s better than risking falling over when the vision takes her.  


She touches the pavement, and at first it’s just a flicker like the changing of a tv channel, a quick blip of static and then it’s all rain. Flora is slowly breathing the thick water as it pounds around her in an all-encompassing din. She feels the pressure, of feet, trucks, the light tapping of seagulls’ beaks searching cracks for crumbs.  


It’s like this occasionally, when she can’t force a target to focus. This stretch of land has a history much broader than Flora’s own, and she can’t seem to speak its language. She tries to project her own images back to the vision as she flattens her palm against the rough ground: footsteps, pain, a body lying motionless. She’s unsure if her message is understood but the vision seems to clarify somewhat. She sees a modern view, the warehouses in similar states of disrepair, the eternal overcast sky, and then she sees the masked figure from her previous vision, and they run. She can feel their footsteps like a series of rhythmic pinpricks across her own skin. They run, away from the road and deeper into the alley and her vision fades as they turn down one of the perpendicular paths further down.  


Flora finds herself gasping as she pulls her hand from the pavement. Small pieces of grit and dirt have pressed into her palm in a pattern of miniature craters, and she suffers the uncomfortable sensation of dusting her hand off on the fabric of her pants before replacing her glove. She stands, grateful to the black fabric of her pants for hiding the mess she’s made of her knees and shins. The other officers and agents are busying themselves near the mouth of the alley, clustered in concerned groups, consulting the evidence they’ve located. She turns her back to them and looks towards the direction she sensed the footsteps.  


She approaches the perpendicular alley. It’s dark, darker than where she stands even with the end of the overhanging tarp above her, and it’s so narrow, half blocked by a series of wooden crates,that she has to squeeze sideways to fit through it. The ground is a mess of muddy streams over the asphalt and far above her she can see the sky obscured by an overhanging fire escape staircase, filling almost the entirety of the narrow gap between buildings above her. She pushes through about twenty feet of narrow alley before the right wall cuts further right and the alley becomes a respectable ten or so feet across. She knows the footsteps went at least this far, and though it’s been hours, she can feel the echo of the movement, the pinpricks still present on her skin and she finds herself rushing, her mind filled with an outside urgency.  


She sees a dead end ahead, or perhaps it’s an opening, and moves quickly towards it, as eager to solve that small mystery as she is to catch up with the ghost she’s chasing. She doesn’t see where the figure comes from before it’s upon her, and with a flash of pain at the side of her head, the world goes dark.  
  


* * *

  
The first thing she feels is the cold, but dry, cement against her cheek, and then she’s assaulted with visions. She snatches her hands away from the floor before she gets more than a series of flashing lights and sensations and she sits up quickly, hugging her hands to her chest. The room, and it is a room she can now see, is barely larger than a standard jail cell, with a single entrance, no windows, and a vaguely flickering fluorescent light above her. She surveys herself and finds her suit jacket is gone, and, though she’s wearing the brown leather chest holster, her gun is missing as well. The most disturbing thing, the thing that almost drives her mad with a sudden fear, is that her gloves are nowhere to be seen.  


She keeps one of her fists held tight to her chest as she touches the aching part of the side of her head. She can feel the bump beneath her hair, and she feels the pain two-fold, from the pressure of her bare fingers, and within the vision her own skull projects through the contact. She takes a deep breath and touches again. This time she can control it. She learned years ago, through a lot of mental exercise, to limit how her powers react with certain things, her own skin was one such target, as well as the few pairs of gloves she wears. Anything outside of those few things she’s out of luck, but she feels a small sense of comfort at being able to bring her hands under control for the moment.  


She stands up and she feels how her dress shirt sticks to her skin in a sweaty mess. The room is warm, humid, and Flora has no idea how long she was unconscious for. She moves cautiously towards the door, there is no handle on the inside and she can’t access the hinges. She leans her ear against it, hoping to hear some clues to her whereabouts. She can hear nothing but the buzzing of the lights above her and her own breathing. She pounds on the door with the side of her fist a few times, each slam sending a backlash of vision, like audio feedback made physical, where the edge of her palm hits the metal door. She stops and listens again. She still hears no movement, nothing whatsoever that gives her an indication of where she is.  


Flora takes a deep breath and steps back. She curls her hands reflexively back against her chest and sits cross legged on the floor against the back wall. _Now would be a good time_ , she thinks, remembering all the times Gimmick has appeared when Flora thought about her. But would Gimmick even come after that fight? Would she be willing to help after the way Flora spoke to her? Everything about the fight feels ridiculous now, it makes even less sense with the very real and present possibility of death or worse on the table.  


She quickly cycles past the idea of rescue. She hadn’t told the officers she was leaving the scene, which was against protocol for precisely this reason, she doesn’t know how long she’s been missing or how far from the crime scene she was taken, this room could be in any number of buildings. The one thing she doesn’t doubt is the perpetrator. There is no one in the city who is more likely to kidnap her for nefarious purposes than Sawblade Tanner and his army of thugs. She just wishes she knew what they wanted from her.  


She’s not sure how much time she has before someone comes to interrogate her, and with that uncertainty her present idea is even more perilous, but it’s the only card she has left. She was twenty years old the last time she attempted this facet of her powers, to reverse the concept of receiving data and _project_ it instead, and the experimentation had scared her enough to avoid it the past fifteen years. Even at the best of times it can be dangerous, and this certainly isn’t the best of times.  


Flora nods, more to convince herself than anything, and concentrates. She opens her palms to the air around her, expanding and exploring her influence, until she feels as if she is reading the entire room, then her scope narrows. She pulls her attention closer and closer to her own body, and she puts her palms together in a symbol of mock prayer. She feels the vision of her own body blurring, she senses her own clammy skin, the quickly bruising half of her face, her messy short hair, and she digs deeper. After a minute or so she finds it, the spark of something deep inside her own sense of self, and she pulls. She pulls the very soul from her chest and her astral form splits from her body like a bird from an egg. She keeps pulling until the blueish spectral form is entirely separate, aside from the narrow silver thread that links her forms together. She finds her consciousness torn between sides, unable to decide where to be, and she allows the astral form to have control.  


She blinks a few times and adjusts to the feeling of this form. She feels perpetually smothered by blankets: a single smooth sensation that is her spectral form moving through the air, and the air moving through her. She is careful not to tangle herself with the small silver thread linking her bodies as she glides through the air to the door, and straight through it.  


As she emerges through the metal she sees a poorly lit hallway, running left to right. She sees no immediate guard presence, and nothing but a single other door in the hallway to the right that appears to be open. She floats in that direction and notes how her silver thread stretches, always maintaining the angle of the shortest distance between her two selves.  


The doorway leads to a second story catwalk overlooking a large open warehouse floor full of truck sized shipping containers. To the right a staircase leads to a higher catwalk and as she looks up she sees three guards in brown and black clothing, each carrying a semi-automatic rifle, patrolling that level. A mostly glass-walled office sits on that highest level, overseeing the warehouse below, and Flora floats towards it. Two more guards stand vigil outside the closed door, and Flora warily floats around them to the side window and leans her head through the glass.  


Sawblade Tanner stands behind a massive wooden desk. He’s large, over six feet and at least half as wide, with greying black hair and a beard. He looks pleased with himself. Two other men are in the office with him. Lacking the rifles of the guards, Flora assumes they must be more influential lackeys with their own weapons of choice. She wonders which one killed Robert Kaucus.  


“So, what are we gonna do with the cop?” The smaller of the two lackeys asks, and Sawblade Tanner laughs, as if suddenly remembering his victory.  


“We find out what she knows, see if there’s anything useful in that god-cursed head of hers, then we get rid of her.” Sawblade laughs again, and Flora hates the look of his teeth when he does, like some sort of predator. “It’s a pity, who knows what jobs we could pull off with powers like hers, but you gotta know she’d be lying every step of the way. She’s cop through and through.”  


“You think she figured out Kaucus was a set up?” The smaller lackey asks, piping up a second time.  


“I wouldn’t doubt it. And if she’s not close to connecting all that Matador business I’ll eat my shoe. James, why don’t you go down there and let her know we mean business. She’s gonna need some softening up before she talks, I can tell.” Tanner gestures to the larger of the two men.

 

“My pleasure.” The man says and turns towards the door.  


Before the door can open Flora is flying back. She floats along her silver thread, the direct path back to herself, at a speed she’s never attempted. She feels like she’s truly flying, like some sort of superhero on a mission to save the city. She knows she can’t leave her body defenseless when that thug James arrives, and something else is nagging at the back of her mind as well, a disturbance on the other side. When she reaches the door to her prison she spares a quick glance at the large wooden slab barring the door from the outside. Escaping while that’s in place is certainly hopeless, and her astral form can do nothing to change that. She glides through the door and into the room.  


Her body is not alone. A black woman about Flora’s age with braided hair pulled into a loose bun at the back of her neck is kneeling in front of Flora’s body. She wears a deep red tank top, loose cotton shorts, and white sandals and she’s aggressively shaking Flora by the shoulders. The fear washes away with relief. Gimmick is here. Flora knows this form, it’s one Gimmick uses whenever she’s feeling serious, and most often when it’s just the two of them. Flora can see her own body too; sweaty, covered in dirt, her hair sticking up on the side, with the left half of her face increasingly swollen and bruised from whatever they’d hit her with.  


Gimmick seems genuinely worried, and, judging by the lack of reaction as Flora’s spectral body approaches, she cannot see this form. Flora begins the process of returning to her body and despite the shaking, she crawls inside as if her physical form was a close fitting suit. Flora can feel when her awareness switches, when she’s fully a single being again, because the frantic shaking becomes real and visceral, and Flora shrugs off Gimmick’s hands.  


“It’s okay,” she tries, “I’m fine, you can-”  


Gimmick’s expression changes to relief and before Flora can react Gimmick has hugged her, warm arms and body pressed against Flora’s shocked and frozen form. It only takes a second for Gimmick to relent and pull back awkwardly. Her expression quickly smooths into the smug knowing look Flora is used to seeing on Gimmick’s faces.  


“Oh, Maxie, what the hell did you get yourself into now?”  


“Thank g-, I’m glad you’re here.” Flora finds herself saying, and she knows it’s true. Whatever that fight was about, it isn’t more important than having help in a situation like this. “Can you get me out of here?” She says quickly.  


Gimmick looks around the empty room, eyes darting as if Flora’s sense of urgency has permeated the space. “Not really my area of expertise, no. I’m a people person. Where is this place?”  


Flora shrugs and shakes her head a little before the ache in her skull catches up. “Who knows, it’s some sort of warehouse. But okay, Gimmick, you know I don’t ask you for things, but, can’t you… I mean, aren’t you… one of the... Gods?”  


Gimmick’s expression goes cold, and then angry. “I don’t like the G-word, Flora Maxwell, and you know that _very_ well.” Her voice is deep and more intimidating than Flora has ever heard it. She finds herself shrinking back into the wall. “Anyway,” she continues with a softer tone, “as I said, I’m a _people person_. I have very little influence on empty, locked rooms.”  


Flora stands up quickly and shakes her head. It’s unfortunate that Gimmick doesn’t seem to have a way out of this place, but even so, Flora feels bad for, again, invoking the word she’d promised not to use around her. “Well if we don’t have a plan, that’s not great… But an unfriendly looking man named James will be here any second, so maybe you should hide.”  


Gimmick nods and stands, moving quickly to the corner near the door, and hopefully when it opens that will be enough to hide her, but when she reaches the corner, she disappears. Seconds later Flora hears the wooden door bar being slid from its brackets and dropped to the floor. The metal door swings open and the body of James, the larger thug from Tanner’s office, fills the doorway.  


“You’re awake then?” The man asks, and Flora doesn’t respond. “That’s good. Mr. Tanner’s got some questions he’d like me to ask. You ready to answer?”  


Flora clenches her fists and remembers her lack of gloves. She’s useless the moment she connects with a punch, any combat without her gloves wais hopeless. She tries for nonchalance. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.”  


James’ only response is to pull what looks like a taser from his pocket, and Flora hears the electric clicking as he tests it. She tries to dodge as he moves forward but isn’t fast enough. The taser hits her in the side and she cries out, doubling over in pain. “You ready to talk yet, cop?” Flora hears him yelling towards her, and she falls to her knees in an attempt to dodge his next lunge. Before she feels the next shock she hears a loud thunk and then watches as James falls to the floor beside her.  


Flora looks up and Gimmick is standing, triumphant, with the large wooden door bar held in both hands. She stands over him and laughs. “I wanted to be more subtle, but he didn’t give me much of a choice.” She shifts the wooden slab to one hand, a feat that would be impossible for a normal human just by the weight of the object alone, and offers her hand to help Flora stand up.  


Flora reaches out her hand and then stops before they touch. She clenches her fist and gets to her feet unaided.  


Gimmick puts down the door bar. “Well that’s certainly boring.” She says.  


“What’s boring about kidnapping and potential torture?” Flora asks, stepping around the unconscious body of James in the small room.  


Gimmick shrugs. “I mean, it’s just predictable. You put a criminal’s son in prison, he kidnaps you. Boring!”  


“I know.” Flora responds and glances towards the still open door. “Let’s go.”    


They both peek around the door frame and see the empty hallway. Flora silently directs them towards the door to the main warehouse floor. She gestures to the maze of shipping containers in the huge room and the door on the far end. Who knows if they could get it open, but it feels like the only option. She glances up towards the catwalk and catches sight of a few of the guards, still holding their rifles. Flora and Gimmick are going to have to make a run for it. Flora signals, and they sprint towards the railing at the edge of the platform and leap over.  


Flora keeps her fists clenched and close to her chest as she lands into a roll on the top of one of the shipping containers. She hears the guards yell and ready themselves somewhere behind them.  


“Get down!” Gimmick yells, and jumps off the edge into the narrow maze between the shipping containers. Flora follows, landing hard on one knee and slamming her shoulder into the corrugated metal wall. A clatter of automatic gunfire hits the top of the shipping container above her and she runs. She can now hear the boots of the guards coming down the stairs onto the main floor. She’s lost sight of where Gimmick is but she knows roughly the direction she needs to run. She turns a corner and skids to a stop. A guard is there, rifle raised, blocking her path.  


“Stop!” The man yells, and Flora has already complied. She can’t get past him, and she’s not sure she could get around the corner back the way she came before he took his shot.  


“Hey, asshole!” She hears, and the voice is familiar. Behind the guard is _her._ It’s a perfect mirror of Flora, down to the sweaty shirt and bruised face, calling out in her own voice.  


The man glances back, and then does a double take, turning fully and training his gun on Gimmick now. He looks between them, standing on either side of him. Flora tries to match Gimmick’s smug smile, uncomfortably placed on her own face.  


“What kind of witch are you?” The man yells, unsure which woman to address.  


“A good one.” They say simultaneously, and Flora laughs as she glances towards Gimmick. Somehow it’s not just like she’s looking in a mirror. Like always, she knows when she’s looking at Gimmick.  


They run in opposite directions, leaving the man in his confusion. Flora finds another way around, trying to keep her bearings and head the right direction. It’s difficult to hear the sound of the guards’ movements over her own breathing and footsteps, but she knows she can’t stop. She runs into one dead end, then another, but she finds a way through until she’s close to the far wall where she’d seen the door. She stops, catching her breath and looking for her next move. She’s not sure where Gimmick is, but she can hear sounds of the guards moving, not incredibly close, but not far enough away to be safe.  


The vision hits her before she realizes what’s happening. There’s light and air whipping around her, she hears laughter coming from everywhere, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knows she’s being pulled by the hand, but she can’t see beyond this vision. There’s too much light to see, and then she sees her own face, ten years younger, when she was a uniformed officer, she sees herself laughing, her stern concentrating face as she fills out paperwork, and the images come faster and faster until the vision clears and she’s running.  


Gimmick is holding her hand, back in the familiar form of the black woman from earlier, and they’re running, through an open door and into the chilly daylight. She can’t really tell what time of day it is, but Gimmick keeps running forward. They’re at the back of the warehouse, right on the docks at the edge of the bay. An empty cement dock is ahead of them.  


Flora can hear the sounds of the men running behind them, and she imagines they’ll reach the door any second. She glances at Gimmick, and Gimmick gives her an encouraging grin. They run towards the dock, hands held tight, and jump.  
  


The water is cold but not frigid, and Flora gasps and begins to swim. They’re able to keep together fairly well, swimming side by side, and travel a few docks down before emerging in the shelter of another warehouse. The sound of distant police sirens comes to them on the salt-filled wind.  
  


* * *

  
Two weeks later Flora is at home. The captain had re-assigned the case, and put Flora on leave, pending a psych evaluation. She had made her report, leaving out the details of her astral projection, and by the time the warrant was procured, Tanner’s warehouse was empty and wiped of evidence. She’s curled up on the couch now, sipping a decaf coffee because it’s too late at night for anything caffeinated but she needs something warm to drink. She can feel the warmth of the drink through her new gloves. She replaced them as soon as she was debriefed at the station, needing the solace and shelter. An open book sits next to her knee, hopelessly ignored.  


She feels like she’s going stir crazy, stuck at home without work to do. Gimmick has been scarce, and Flora finds herself thinking of her more than she’d like. Part of her mind has tried to write off the thoughts as just an urge for stimulation; things are always exciting when Gimmick is around, and she’s been hopelessly bored. What’s more of an intriguing mystery than a god who spends her time with a detective and of course, when you call her a god she disappears and sulks for days?   
  


Somehow, this time it seems, her thoughts have summoned Gimmick. She appears on the couch beside Flora, half sitting on the discarded book. She’s wearing pajamas, a silk nightgown and a matching robe in deep red, her feet are bare. Her skin is roughly the same tone as Flora’s own, but her eyes are more golden than brown, and her curly brunette hair sits around her shoulders.  


“Thinking about me again, Maxie?” Gimmick jokes, but it doesn’t have her usual flair. Something about her feels more serious.  


“What else do I have to think about?” Flora replies. “I’m stuck at home for another week.”  


“Boy, you sure know how to flatter a girl.” Gimmick laughs, but it feels half-hearted.  
  


“Sorry,” Flora begins, “You know what I meant…” She hopes Gimmick _does_ understand. She can’t shake the weird feeling that she may have actually hurt Gimmick’s feelings. It’s like she’s walking on glass. “Oh, and thank you. I’m not sure I ever said it, after the warehouse.”  


Flora looks at her hands, clenched around her cup, and leans forward to set it on the coffee table. When she looks back towards Gimmick it strikes her how human she looks. There’s no crack in her facade, no hint of the dozens of other forms Flora has seen her wear over the years. She wonders if Gimmick even _has_ a single true form, and if she does, is it too magnificent for mortal eyes to comprehend?  


She’s not sure why she does it, maybe it’s something about the look on Gimmick’s face, or just the pure curiosity, but Flora loosens and then removes the glove from her right hand. Before she can give it a second thought she reaches out and touches Gimmick’s bare forearm.  


The vision is different than the last time, when Gimmick grabbed her hand in the warehouse. The light, so overwhelming before, is a warm glow, and Flora’s mind swells with all the nostalgia of Eduardo Martinez’s memories and more. She feels Gimmick projecting her feelings, guiding Flora through the complicated maze of vision, making sure she knows every iota of emotion her body holds. When she hears the laughter it’s gentle, and she realizes it’s only coming from one source, Gimmick, next to her on the couch. The emotional swell lessens and Flora pulls back, just an inch, to come back to herself.  


Gimmick’s face is so close Flora’s eyes can’t focus, and then they’re kissing. Flora isn’t sure who moved first, or who is more enthusiastic. She’s riding the high of Gimmick’s emotions, Gimmick’s emotions _for her_ , all the feelings of a decade of camaraderie. It feels natural, that this is where it was going, like a river reaching the sea after countless eddies and rapids.  


They pull back, eventually, and Flora realizes her hand is on the side of Gimmick’s neck, thumb caressing her jaw, but she’s not having any visions.  


“Well that’s new.” Flora says, and she’s not sure if she means the kiss, or the strange lack of visions.  


“I’ve been wanting to do that for years, Flora, you don’t even know.” Gimmick says with a smile, and Flora believes her.  


“So,” Flora continues, after a few seconds of silence, “what now?”  


Gimmick leans up and plants a quick kiss on Flora’s forehead before moving back. “There’s always more crimes to solve, right?”

  
  


_I want to possess you completely –  
Your jade body  
And your promised heart.  
It is Spring.  
Vast mists cover the Five Lakes.  
My dear, let me buy a red painted boat  
And carry you away _

    **_For the Courtesan Ch’ing Lin_ ** _by_ **_Wu Tsao_ ** ****

**Author's Note:**

> Title and prologue/epilogue quotes from ["For the Courtesan Ch'ing Lin" by Wu Tsao](https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/wutsao/FortheCourtesan.html)
> 
> This was a fun, but challenging piece to write. I hope people, especially the exchange recipient, enjoy it.
> 
> Please feel free to comment. I'm not going to lie, I could be easily convinced to write more of this universe.


End file.
